The families of four of the Irish students killed in the Berkeley balcony collapse this week are taking their loved ones back to Ireland for burial.
The remains of Lorcán Miller, Eimear Walsh, Eoghan Culligan and Niccolai Schuster are expected to arrive in Dublin on Sunday morning.
A joint funeral service was held in Sonoma, California, on Saturday for cousins Ashley Donohoe, 22, who is a joint Irish-American citizen, and Olivia Burke, 21, from Dublin, whose body will be flown back to Ireland on Sunday.
The Irish consul-general in San Francisco hired buses to take fellow students to the mass.
All six were killed when a balcony they were standing on collapsed at an apartment complex in Berkeley on Tuesday night. Investigators are focusing on rain damage and dry rot as possible causes.
The Irish Immigration Pastoral Centre in San Francisco revealed that passengers booked on flights from the west coast city to Ireland gave up their seats over the weekend to ensure family and friends of the dead could travel.
Ireland’s minister for the diaspora, Jimmy Deenihan, confirmed that the conditions of two of those injured in the accident, Conor Flynn and Jack Halpin, had improved significantly over the last 24 hours.
Speaking after visiting the John Muir hospital in California, where the many of the injured are being treated, he said: “I was very encouraged with the spirit that I saw there. Conor was very positive, and it helped no doubt that four of his friends were with him, one of them coming from Chicago, the other from San Diego.
“Also, he is just concerned for the people that are injured and he hopes that they will all make a full recovery as well.
“That came across very strong[ly] and was very much in evidence, and of course, his sorrow for his lost friends as well.
“I have rarely seen such an outpouring of sympathy and grief for those people who died in this tragic accident ... and also for their families and their friends.
“So there is huge universal support in Ireland, but also amongst the Irish diaspora all over the world.”
A mass will be held to remember the dead and injured at Dublin’s St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on Saturday evening, led by the city’s archbishop, Diarmuid Martin.
